Yes, this is another rant topic.

This game is so terribly f**** up!

I mean the AI is so terribly overpowered it could achieve like 5 era stars in one turn on metropolis difficulty level. I mean, WTF? I consider myself an experienced Civilization franchise player, I can quite easily win on most difficulty levels except maybe deity, and in Humankind AI is so much overpowered, it could destroy my civ on mediocre levels. Way too much handicap. Developers, You must work on this ASAP because it totally messed up!

I prefer to just play on nation, as I don't like the ai bonuses personally. But there are people out there who can beat humankind difficulty no problem. 

As far as being a civ veteran, this game is similar but different in it's own way. It takes a different strategic approach for sure. 

Gaining 5 stars isn't a big deal and factors into different things as I have done similar things. As triggering the effects can stack on one turn if the conditions are right. Now if you mean they got this turn 1 at the very start of the game that's different. If you mean they went to another era and immediately got 5 that can happen for you as well.

I've played a lot of Civ VI on Deity and a lot of Humankind on Humankind. A lot of the same principles apply: you'll probably fall behind the AI, maybe even quite a bit behind, but your goal is to build your civilization into an engine that will overcome them all before the game ends, despite all their advantages... and if you do it right, that's exactly what happens.

It's really easy to see a big fame deficit and get discouraged, but those deficits can be overcome. Just like how in Deity Civ VI you can be stuck making 1/10 the science and culture of the AI in the mid game, and still pull out a comfortable victory.

Patience, there's a lot of things to learn about HK and if you come from Civ without experience with Amplitude's titles, then it's double the effort to first unlearn Civ things and learn HK's. Similarities between the two series are, imo, quite superficial, as long as we talk about Empire Builders. There's a lot of same results, but you arrive to them in different ways and at different pace.

And as others said, HK is a marathon, not a sprint. Being first halfway through means nothing, the enemies can even collapse under own weight (maybe just with a little nudge now, because they toned it down a bit) in the long run. You will have options to call the end early if you're already in the lead, but that's far in the last era.

I found out that stacking combat power can help quite a bit.

:D

+2 tenet, +2 civics, +2 rear attack, veterancy, friendly units, focused fire, terrain...

You can successfully wage a war against much superior foe. Even two tech levels above.

I don't have any screenies of that I am afraid, but I recently whopped Humankind's ass with my Legionnaires against his gunpowder units. Not saying it's a thing you can pull off every time, but it's possible. At Humankind you'll always need at least 2 full stacks in early game anyway. Preferably 3. With three stacks and some clever combination of choosing the right place to fight and correct combat tactics you can take on a much bigger enemy. Also, be smart about fighting battles. Don't attack in defensive battles if it's not in your favor. Let him come. Preferably to a river tile under your hill. :D Use defense. That's extra strength and if he wants you, he need to come and get you. Stack units together. The friendly bonus is great. I don't build archers for offense. They suck and they are a freebie for cavalry. You can't do much about it and they'll kill them in open terrain. Futhermore, archers have almost always some sort of penalty on them (woods, not direct fire...) and this gets worse by the time you get to straight firing units such as crossbowman. They are rather goo on the defense on the other hand... I don't use cavalry myself as they are basically dead weight. They are vulnerable against pikemen, they absolutely suck in sieges (I almost never siege and always assault) unless you build siege engines and make way for them over the walls. This is practically not gonna happen with battering rams. Ballista / trebuchets at the earliest, but by that time AI usually has stone walls and they suck against stone walls. I must admit, at first I thought walls are useless in this game, the same bonus with pallisades as with more advanced fortifications, but I was wrong. They are very useful and powerful. For example they make you cavalry useless until you breach them. :D It's a good tactics to first get your units around your target and then attack all at once, than one by one. The reason is that they'll get/miss the adjacency friendly unit bonuses.

Lol, this post got out of the way a little bit. :D Hopefully, you'll see some tips that will make your life easier.

Scheneighnay wrote:

... One such difference is that Civ AI won't asspull 4 full stacks of max-veterancy units out of its single 5-pop city in early game wars ...

That seems rather excessive.

I haven't even thought about it, but now that I see your screenshot I'm reminded that Battleship is basically a downgrade on most of the occasions (because, realistically, how often will you have a naval battle in an open sea rather than coastal engagement?), huh. It could at the very least use way more range.

Cruor34 wrote:

DNLH wrote:

I haven't even thought about it, but now that I see your screenshot I'm reminded that Battleship is basically a downgrade on most of the occasions (because, realistically, how often will you have a naval battle in an open sea rather than coastal engagement?), huh. It could at the very least use way more range.

Yes, inner sea mastodonte is insanely OP, I modded it down to + 5 myself, I think the big unit rebalance on mod.io does a similar downgrade. Battleship itself is also under powered, It should be like 62 CS base (its 59 in game) and have 1-2 more range than it does now. Really, the only reason we stopped using Battleships is because an aircraft carrier can do what it does only better, but if somehow an Iowa class battleship got within 15 mile range of any navy it would do massive damage and likely be able to withstand multiple modern missile hits as they aren't made to hit ships with a foot of steel armor. Anyway, the game needs a unit rebalance patch rather than us always having to look to mods, and Inner Sea Mastodonte should be one of the first abilities to get a hard nerf. 

As for the OP.... the AI is not hard to beat, rofl. I beat it with ease on the 2nd highest difficulty and I'd consider myself a casual as far as this game goes, as an example, I didn't even know what that scince thing they nerfed last patch was, I had to look it up, and I still stomp the AI. If anything, it needs buffs to be more effective late game. The AI keeps me at least interested up to mid game, but once I am well established I rocket past them and by the contemporary era the game is just boring and I quit. My tanks and monoplanes fighting musketeers is just boring. 

My only problem with carriers in this game is you can't use planes if they are in combat. I tend to have them be there own separate stacks. Thinking of guarding them with subs.

Achilleus wrote:

Yes, this is another rant topic.

This game is so terribly f**** up!

I mean the AI is so terribly overpowered it could achieve like 5 era stars in one turn on metropolis difficulty level. I mean, WTF? I consider myself an experienced Civilization franchise player, I can quite easily win on most difficulty levels except maybe deity, and in Humankind AI is so much overpowered, it could destroy my civ on mediocre levels. Way too much handicap. Developers, You must work on this ASAP because it totally messed up!

According to my previous memory, the AI of metropolis will not be inferior to that of Empire。This is misleading. Even the AI of national difficulty is weaker than that of metropolis